Charles City Joins Jail Project

Surry Only 1 Of 7 Not To Commit Yet

July 29, 1992|By BENTLEY BOYD Daily Press

CHARLES CITY (COUNTY) — Charles City County supervisors on Tuesday approved the contract for a $57.7 million regional jail in Prince George County, leaving only Surry County to endorse the seven-locality project.

It was a vote of confidence in a project that has been discussed since 1988. The supervisors did not appropriate money for the project because the state will pay half the cost of constructing the Riverside Regional Jail and bonds will be sold to pay for the other half. Fees for housing prisoners will repay the bonds.

Those fees have not been set, but county Attorney B. Randolph Boyd said they would be lower than the ones Charles City pays to house prisoners in other jails. The county has no jail and has sent prisoners as far away as Virginia Beach.

"We have been bounced from pillar to post, from Richmond to Williamsburg," Boyd said.

Charles City is guaranteed spaces for 16 inmates in the 804-bed regional facility, which may open in 1994. "That is almost three times our projected need, according to two separate studies done some time ago," Boyd said.

If the county does not need all 16 beds, the others are rented to communities who are not a part of the Riverside Regional Jail Authority, Boyd said after the meeting. But if Charles City County ever needs another space, the non-member prisoner is sent elsewhere.

Construction of the 325,000-square-foot jail is slated to begin next spring.

The jail has been endorsed by Colonial Heights, Hopewell, Petersburg and Prince George and Chesterfield counties.

Surry supervisors are scheduled to discuss the jail next month. That county would be guaranteed 24 beds in Riverside. Surry has only two temporary holding cells in its sheriff's office.

Before he voted for the jail, Charles City Supervisor Rudolph V. Jones asked if the small rural county would have as much say in governing the jail as the larger communities.

Boyd pointed to the bylaws for the jail, and said, "Though the product you see before you tonight is essentially a take-it-or-leave-it document, it is one on which you have had a substantial amount of impact."

The jail can be expanded to 1,368 beds. (If that happens, Charles City could put 27 inmates there, Surry 41.)

The Riverside Regional Jail will be built on 154 acres between Interstate 295 and the Appomattox River. It will be surrounded by a 25-acre park.